Jimmy Howard gets the start, which surprises me as Chris Osgood was solid his last game out and is unbeaten against Tampa Bay in his career. Howard's on a roll though so you can't exactly go against that.

I was there (among a number of other folks who donated to Forgotten Harvest)!

I liked Michael Rosenberg's column today re: how the new and the young are contributing and getting valuable experience that would be lacking without the injuries. However, I think we're approaching the "tipping" point...how many more rabbits can the Wings pull out of their magic hat?

So Henrik Zetterberg is set to have an MRI on his injured shoulder. I'm not a doctor or anything but I can't recall any time when someone was sent bad enough to have tests done only for them to turn around and say "All clear, he'll be back tomorrow."

In short, Zata's gonna miss some time even if he's just sore.

Let's do this math. NHL teams dress twenty players for every game. Two of those are goalies, leaving eighteen skaters.

That's nine skaters right there. Nine. Going into Saturday's game in Dallas you can expect the Red Wings to be playing with a roster half made up of players who weren't even supposed to be on this team.

Justin Abdelkader was supposed to spend the season in Grand Rapids. Kris Newbury and Doug Janik have spent most of the season there. Brad May wasn't even signed to an NHL contract when the Red Wings opened the season in Stockholm. Drew Miller - who scored a beautiful goal Thursday night against Tampa Bay - was playing for the Lightning when the season kicked off.

And yet the Red Wings sit six points ouf of first place in the Western Conference with three games in hand.

I always thought it was "with the pass". Anyways, I'm really liking the defensive side of things for the past 20 or so games. Even while being shutout a few times, theres been very low scoring vs. detroit of late. Howard playing very well but he's not being bombarded for the most part. That being said, another wing bites the dust, it will catch up eventually. Good coaching and depth has made this team still a tough "out" in each game.